1. Year 7 - Knowledge Organiser – Gothic Writing
Definition of ‘Gothic’ writing: “Tales of the macabre, fantastic, and supernatural, usually set amid haunted castles, graveyards, ruins, and wild picturesque landscapes.”
Typical genre features:
Typical characters:
Typical settings:
1. Death and darkness
1. Mysterious characters with high social status e.g. Princes, counts
1. Wild landscapes
2. Supernatural (magic, ghosts, vampires, curses)
2. Female or feminine characters that are threatened by powerful men
2. Medieval style castles, churches or abbeys
3. Curses or prophecies
3. Threatening women who are monsters or vampires
3. Gloomy, decayed and ruined environments
4. Madness and intense emotions/paranoia
4. Powerful, tyrannical male figures
4. Remote, uninhabited places (older gothic) or monsters intermingling in every day life (newer gothic)
5. Mystery, terror and suspense
5. Villains, vampires, ghosts, werewolves, giants
5. Volatile and threatening weather (symbolism)
Social and Historical Context
Values and ideas held by gothic writers
The term ‘gothic’ comes from the Germanic tribe ‘the Goths’, who played a part in the fall of the Roman Empire. The Goths are sometimes called barbarians. They destroyed a lot of Roman architecture in around C3 and replaced it with buildings in the gothic style.
Medieval Europe (C3-14) is sometimes referred to as the ‘Dark Ages’ (although this can be contested for a number of reasons.) Some believe that people lived in fear due to superstition and ignorance and that not much learning took place in this time. Castles with gargoyles were built to ward off evil spirits, this architecture is known as ‘gothic’ e.g. Notre Dame.
Figures from The Age of Enlightenment (C18-19) believed that scientific progress was the only way to advance society, and great discoveries were made in this time. They tried to rid Europe of superstition and ignorance through promoting reason and logic.
A group of poets, artists and thinkers called the Romantics challenged this because they believed that not everything can be explained by science, and too much reason rids the world of beauty and mystery.
The gothic genre first emerged from the Romantic movement. It used art and ideas from the Dark Ages, wild emotion and nature to contrast modern ideas about science and logic.
Gothic writing transformed into the format of the extremely popular Victorian ghost story.
Today, we use the term ‘gothic’ widely to describe art, style, clothing (e.g. Alexander McQueen couture) music and film (e.g. Tim Burton films). The style and genre is very much still alive.
Gothic writers are preoccupied with the supernatural because they believe that not everything has a scientific explanation.
They believed that nature is ‘sublime’: it has the power to simultaneously inspire awe and terror in people.
They challenged society’s expectations about propriety and emotion. To show wild emotion was seen as crass and uncouth, but not to the gothic writers, who often depicted passion and rage.
They explored the role of the female characters: often in gothic texts, there are powerful female roles, which contrasted the contemporary society.
They were very interested in the psychological exploration of characters, particularly in relation to themes of madness.
Big question: why is a genre that is so frightening so popular?
Notable Gothic texts (in chronological order)
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole, 1765
Vathek – William Beckford, 1786
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley, 1818
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo, 1831
The Raven – Edgar Allen Poe, 1845
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte, 1847
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – R.L. Stevenson, 1887
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, 1890
Dracula – Bram Stoker, 1897
Rebecca – Du Maurier, 1931
The Woman in Black – Susan Hill, 1983
The Graveyward Book, Neil Gaiman
2008
Key vocabulary
Abstruse
Afflicted
Alienate
Anguish
Annihilate
Apprehensions
Beguile
Claustrophobia
Decomposing
Despair
Dilapidated
Discomforted
Disfigured
Enigma
Entrapment
Forbidding
Grotesque
Hopeless
Lamentable
Lifeless
Mournfully
Obscured
Sinister
Torturous
Unleashed
Vengeful
Withered
Wretched
Key techniques
Narrative voice
Semantic field
Sibilance
Assonance
Pathetic fallacy
alliteration
Contrast
Figurative
Imagery
Juxtaposition
Verb
Personification
Adjective
Symbolism